I’m a mum – here’s why you shouldn’t spend money on school photos and how to get better ones instead

IT’S the time of year I hate the most.

Last week I got the dreaded annual school email asking me to part with at least £22 of my hard earned cash for one school photo of my child, Ella, 11 years, who has just started at senior school, and in a few weeks time it will be the same with my primary school son, Leo, seven.

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For this price I could get a single digital photo, the same as four large lattes and cookie from Costa - something I’d much rather spend my dosh on. 

If I went for the Platinum Portrait Package, consisting of 8 varying sizes, it would cost me £57.

Or, if I wanted to part with £75 which would buy almost our weekly shop, I could get a canvas print of her sitting looking awkward and faking a smile in the school hall.

After years of being asked to pay for school photos, I can confidently say any mum who chooses to splash the cash and buy these photos is a fool.

And, I’d argue, probably only doing so because they feel they have to.

TACKY PHOTOS BELONG IN THE DOWNSTAIRS LOO

Most mums I know take photos of their kids all the time - and have more than enough photos stored to look back on their children's childhood.

I find it weird when I see school photos spanning every school year, mounted in frames up people's stairs.

One mum I know hangs hers in the downstairs loo - do we need a clearer sign that the photos were tacky?

Back when my daughter first started school in Reception class, was when we first experienced just how shocking these pictures can be. 

When we were given the photos to look at I knew there was no way I’d be buying them. 

To say she looked like she would have rather had pins stuck in her eyes than sit and have her photo taken was an understatement.

However, the next year, I felt bad, so we purchased a slightly better photo, and since then we have only purchased two more, both joint with her brother, which came out of feeling the pressure to buy them like everyone else.

However now, with her brother at a different school to her, there is no way I am forking out twice the price.

The cheapest option this year at my kids’ school is £22 for a single digital print. 

But even if I wasn’t so careful with what I spent my dosh on and they were much cheaper, I still wouldn’t buy them.

Surely I am not the only parent who thinks that they belong in the past and should stay dead and buried alongside Turkey Dinosaurs?

Kirsty Ketley

SCHOOLS HAVE FOUND A WEAK SPOT

Let’s be honest, they normally look like they’ve been taken in a comedy photo booth -  with our darling children looking more like Wallace from Wallace and Gromit with their cheesy grins.

Have you ever looked back at your school photos and thought: “Thank goodness my parents shelled out their hard-earned money on these?” No, me neither.

So why are school photos still a ‘thing’?

I am almost certain I’ve worked out why - it’s because most parents are feeble when it comes to this kind of thing and schools have found a weak spot and will likely not stop when they can make money from them. 

It isn't the case in all schools, but some can ask for up to a 35% commission rate from photographers.

As parents, our kids are our most prized possessions.

A recent study found parents are more likely to part with their money for anything child related.

But more than anything, I think that lots of mums buy pictures just because it’s a tradition.

But surely I am not the only parent who thinks that they belong in the past and should stay dead and buried alongside Turkey Dinosaurs?

School photos happen soon after the kids head back to school – around September/October time, just as parents are trying to recover from forking out a small fortune on all the paraphernalia that is needed for the start of the new school term.

After spending a small fortune on uniform, bags, water bottles, shoes, trainers, sports kit & stationery, being asked to then splash out on something else - that is usually substandard anyway ( these pictures rarely have the WOW factor) is a financial annoyance that parents really don’t need. 

If you do decide to purchase a photo, photographers have a huge, sometimes confusing, selection of options to buy their below par pictures.

PHOTOSHOP HORROR

The three times we have let stupidity prevail and purchased photos under pressure from feeling like we have to keep up with the other parents, we have ended up with more photos than we have family to give to.

In one ‘value pack’ we purchased we randomly ended up with a couple of bookmarks too - which is just tacky. 

While when I was at school parents had to choose between sizes of photos, now they can buy mugs, cushions and large canvas prints, costing upwards of £75.

And the ridiculous thing is, there are parents out there willing to spend that kind of money on a portrait of their beloved child looking like they hate life.

Rarely has a child reported being excited to have their photo taken, and they are so rushed, they barely know what is going on.

And don’t get me started on the dark brown or grey cardboard frames that the pictures come in. 

They have not changed at all in 30 years. Rarely do they stand up straight on the shelf and if I am being totally honest, they look incredibly naff. 

The nineties may be back En Vogue for many things, but this is one part that really shouldn’t be.

You could, instead, put the prints in your own aesthetically pleasing frame, so that they don’t stand out like a sore thumb on the mantlepiece, but then you still run the risk of damaging your child’s self-esteem, because they have to spend the next year looking at a photo of themselves, which they will likely deem hideous, due to the way in which the photo was taken.

Unless, of course, when ordering your precious picture, you opt for the horrifying new ‘photoshop’ option. Yes, that’s right, in some cases, you can now get your child’s acne, blemishes, crooked teeth (and breakfast down their jumper), erased. 

On one school photograph company's website, under the FAQs, they stipulate that they offer minor adjustments - such as spot removal, at their discretion and only after receiving explicit instructions from the parents, who simply add a note to the photo in question and as long as it isn't too complicated or difficult to look natural, they will permit your request.

This horrifying digital trick is just wrong. Airbrushing your kids sends the message that they are not perfect just the way they are, and if their own parents think like that, what hope do they have of loving the skin they’re in?

If they hate the way they look, then not buying the photo at all, would be a much kinder thing to do. In an age where we are trying to teach our kids about body positivity, parents who choose to make their children look like something that they are not, are damaging their children. 

We don’t need ‘official’ school photos nowadays, anyway, because we all have digital cameras, if only on our phones, and these all take a decent enough picture, and means that we can encapsulate our children looking exactly like themselves.

I have certainly taken better photos of my children on their first days back to school, then any school photographer has managed, and I am certain that most other parents have too.

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